Thai government pledges action as Bangkok pollution spikes

BANGKOK – Thai officials on Friday promised action to address a spike in air pollution that came before the normal peak of seasonal haze, but environmental activists accused the authorities of hot air.

Bangkok was ranked as the world’s 10th-most polluted city on Friday, according to IQAir, a Swiss-based air quality technology company.

Government officials said the sudden spike was largely due to atmospheric conditions, with fine particulate accumulating due to colder air, high air pressure and dry weather.

The jump in PM2.5 – particles so fine that they can enter the bloodstream – prompted the government to warn vulnerable groups.

“Air quality and safety... is an important priority,” a government statement insisted.

Officials promised to “ramp up PM2.5 prevention methods, such as limiting the area where people can burn crops, setting up regulations between the public and private sectors, increasing monitoring spots, and negotiating with relevant sectors about the transnational pollution”.

However, environmental groups accused the government of ignoring a key contributor to the problem: industry.

“We have to put the Band-Aid where the wound is,” said Ms Alliya Moun-ob, air pollution campaigner for Greenpeace Thailand.

“Several research papers show industrial activity causes a large percentage of PM2.5, but we have little data about it.”

Thailand’s government says the industrial sector accounts for just 4 per cent of the suffocating haze that regularly blankets parts of the country during the cooler winter months.

It instead blames factors like seasonal burning by farmers, including in neighbouring countries.

But the recent spike in pollution, even before the peak of the burning season, shows the industrial sector’s impact is likely much higher, said Ms Panchom Saetang, the director of Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand.

She has researched air quality issues for over a decade and believes industry contributes closer to a third of the particulate that causes haze in the capital.

“I appreciate the government is trying to fix the PM2.5 problem, but what they should do is to look at the industrial sector seriously,” she said.

Environmentalists are lobbying for the implementation of a law that would force factories to release emissions data.

“We still don’t have enough data to know what the real cause is. The data is inaccessible,” Ms Penchom said, adding that the government is “only focusing on farmers’ activities”.

Ms Alliya said the spike in pollution so early in the season should be a wake-up call highlighting the need to tackle the issue transparently.

“It’s the start of the PM 2.5 season. We have to properly tackle this by identifying the root cause of the problem,” she said.

Thai cities, including Chiang Mai in the north

, have regularly topped global rankings for poor air quality this year.

Over

two million people have sought medical treatment

this year for problems linked to poor air quality, the country’s Health Ministry said. AFP